Despite a price war and falling ASPs for microprocessors, new market share data from iSuppli Corp, highlights that neither company took any real advantage from the situation in 2009. According to the market research firm, AMD accounted for 12.1 percent of worldwide MPU revenue in 2009, gaining 1.6 percentage points of share from Intel and other small producers, compared to the same period in 2008. Intel held an 80.6% share of global MPU revenue in the fourth quarter, compared to 81.6% in the fourth quarter of 2008.
“For the full year of 2009, the market share situation was somewhat more balanced with AMD and Intel picking up two-tenths and three-tenths of a percent of share, respectively, in 2009 compared to 2008,” said Matthew Wilkins, Principal Analyst for Computer Platforms at iSuppli Corp. “This is an interesting development because PC Average Selling Prices (ASPs) dropped significantly during the course of 2009—especially for notebooks. So, the fact that AMD and Intel virtually maintained their market share at the annual level shows that neither supplier was overly punished by the dropping ASPs. It also indicates that neither was able to capitalize on the situation very effectively.”
The smaller microprocessor suppliers collectively accounted for 7.3 percent of shipments in the fourth quarter, down 0.6 points from 7.9 percent during the same period in 2008.